- #1
Cycklops
- 2
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Was watching some documentaries and got confused about something.
People say that Einstein unintentionally predicted that the universe was expanding, and that he inserted the cosmological constant to represent a force pulling it back in. But other sources seem to imply that the universe was supposed to be collapsing under gravity, and he inserted the cosmological constant to represent a force pushing it out (which is what it seems to represent today).
So which is it? The idea of the cosmological constant being a force pushing against gravity makes the most sense, but that seems to contradict the normal claim that Einstein was the first to find that the universe should be expanding.
People say that Einstein unintentionally predicted that the universe was expanding, and that he inserted the cosmological constant to represent a force pulling it back in. But other sources seem to imply that the universe was supposed to be collapsing under gravity, and he inserted the cosmological constant to represent a force pushing it out (which is what it seems to represent today).
So which is it? The idea of the cosmological constant being a force pushing against gravity makes the most sense, but that seems to contradict the normal claim that Einstein was the first to find that the universe should be expanding.